Lists of hospitals with patient death rates exceeding national avg have been created. The data is adjusted for ages of patients (i.e hospitals catering to older patients are expected to have higher death rates so the data is adjusted accordingly)

The hospitals do not want the rank on these lists to be a measure of quality of hospital care. Each option except one gives a logical reason for hospitals' opposition.


(A) Rank order might indicate insignificant differences, rather than large differences, in numbers of patient deaths.

What if differences are minor such as 10.056 per 1000 and 10.1 per 1000 but they differ by 100 in their rank? The difference may be considered insignificant in number terms but in rank terms it makes one hospital look far worse than the other.

(B) Hospitals that keep patients longer are likely to have higher death rates than those that discharge patients earlier but do not record deaths of patients at home after discharge.

Certainly a valid point. Hospitals who give care longer to the patient will have higher death rates than hospitals who send patients away quickly and then not record their death. Hence death rate may not be good measure of the care the hospital provides.

(C) Patients who are very old on admission to a hospital are less likely than younger patients to survive the same types of illnesses or surgical procedures.

The data has already been adjusted for age differences. Hence the hospitals cannot complain about this and this is not a logical point.
Hence this is the answer.

(D) Some hospitals serve a larger proportion of low-income patients, who tend to be more seriously ill when admitted to a hospital.

A valid point again. If patients coming in are more seriously ill, the death rates are expected to be higher so the hospital should not be penalised for that.

(E) For-profit hospitals sometimes do not provide intensive-care units and other expensive services for very sick patients but refer or transfer such patients to other hospitals.

Some hospitals do not provide services to very sick patients but refer them to other (perhaps specialised) hospitals. The death rate in these hospitals will be lower than the death rate in other hospitals. If they treat only the easily treatable cases, they are bound to have better standing in death rates. Hence (E) is a valid concern against the lists too.

Answer (C)
_________________

I would say C.

B,D & E are in effect say that some hospital take more risk or try to handle more complicated illnesses.

A might be right, but it actually may be a ground to object ranking as a way of comparing quality of hospital services. Not quite sure about A

But I will stay with C. (assuming that older people evenly distributed along all hospitals - C does not give ground to object ranking)

IMO, C is the answer because the argument that different ages bias the data is made moot by the fact that age differentials were somehow "adjusted" or normalized.

I will go for C.
Because the argument says "The data have been adjusted to allow for differences in the ages of patients"
Now when age differences have already been taken into account, what logical ground hospitals have to object ranking based on C.
thanks, Vicks

(A) Rank order might indicate insignificant differences, rather than large differences, in numbers of patient deaths.I don't really think this providea a "good logical ground" but C is the "better" answer
(B) Hospitals that keep patients longer are likely to have higher death rates than those that discharge patients earlier but do not record deaths of patients at home after discharge.Hospitals can say they are better than their rank because they chose to keep the really sick
(C) Patients who are very old on admission to a hospital are less likely than younger patients to survive the same types of illnesses or surgical procedures.This is the only one that clearly doesn't refute the list and rank, as the rank has already been adjusted for age. Best answer.
(D) Some hospitals serve a larger proportion of low-income patients, who tend to be more seriously ill when admitted to a hospital.The hospital could still provide good care, but just get a lot of poor patients
(E) For-profit hospitals sometimes do not provide intensive-care units and other expensive services for very sick patients but refer or transfer such patients to other hospitals.The hospitals with IC units will get a lot more really sick people, but that doesn't mean the for-profit hospitals are better

@GMATNinja,@GMATNinjaTwo, gmat1393, nightblade354

I understand option C. But what does option E mean and why is it wrong ??

mallya12

Please refer the explanation in below link

https://gmatclub.com/forum/lists-of-hos ... l#p2248268

What does it mean when option E tells FOR-profit hospitals don't provide IC units and other expensive services??? If they have specialised system why are they referring to other hospitals??

Healthcare is a basic civic amenity and hence, there may be Govt aided not-for-profit hospitals.
For-profit hospitals would be those which are in the industry to earn money and they may not keep very expensive facilities, say diagnostic machines, because of cost factor. So they may refer critical patients needing these expensive machines to Govt aided hospitals or specialised hospitals which have high tech facilities.
Then death rates of these for-profit hospitals may not be comparable to those of Govt aided or specialised facilities hospitals.
_________________

I think the hardest part about this problem is not understanding the stem but understanding the actual question

'Each of the following, if true, provides a good logical ground for hospitals to object to interpreting rank on these lists as one of the indices of the quality of hospital care EXCEPT:'

Would never have got what they wanted from me here before I've seen an explanation.
_________________

A.) Provides a reason for objection.

B.) Provides a drawback of the factor

C.) Correct - Data also includes the differences in the age of the patients.

D.) Provides a drawback of the factor.

E.) Provides a drawback of the factor.